


You know me

by lemonadesoda



Series: And I don't think you hate this as much as you wish you did [2]
Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Human!Snatcher, Hurt/Comfort, Oh the Humanity AU (A Hat in Time), Other, Queerplatonic Relationships, going hard in the Make Snatcher Cry competition, no more revisions siri send post, oth!au, the beginning of one anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:13:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27522838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonadesoda/pseuds/lemonadesoda
Summary: It’s not that Snatcher ever truly hated Moonjumper. At this point, he still tells himself it’s hate. He needs this illusion. The alternatives, after all, are much more terrifying.Give him time.
Relationships: Moonjumper & Snatcher (A Hat in Time)
Series: And I don't think you hate this as much as you wish you did [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1999939
Comments: 22
Kudos: 148





	You know me

**Author's Note:**

> His life will get better soon, I swear.
> 
> Key references:  
> 1\. Arctic Cruise Conversation (doodledrawsthings.tumblr.com/post/631975410912133120/)  
> 2\. Oh Hello: The Nursery Comic (doodledrawsthings.tumblr.com/post/629876573831577600/)

> _ I really wish you’d stop acting like you know me. _
> 
> _ I wish you’d realize I’m the last person on Earth who does. _

Week 4.

“You don’t have to report to me every day, you know,” Snatcher tells Moonjumper without looking up. He’s watching the kids play a video game together. It’s a cooperative arrangement, which is disappointing, but he laughs whenever they die so there’s still some entertainment value.

“Maybe I also want to check on how  _ you _ are doing?” they say, inviting themself to sit next to him behind the kids. Every day it’s like this. They stop by, report on the mundane nothing that has happened since he last spoke with them. Nothing changes that much in a day, especially not Subcon. Maybe they’re getting bored, but why is Snatcher the one they want to ply for conversation?

Snatcher glares at their proximity and scoots over to put more space between them. He sweeps a hand over himself. “As you can see, I’m still trapped in the meat suit, so use your intuition.”

They hum in acknowledgment and glance over sidelong. “Your hand looks better.”

Snatcher immediately covers it with his other hand and gives them a sour look. It hasn’t been bleeding for a while now, but he still keeps it wrapped to brace it and keep himself from picking the scabs. He forgot how long humans take to heal, though the process had been helped along by the kids’ alien technology, otherwise his broken knuckles would have left him without his good hand for weeks. He also does not like being reminded. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it, Moonjumper. He’s just pretending he still needs the bandages so that he doesn’t have to lose to me at Bug Quest,” Hat Kid says, leaning into Bow as she maneuvers her character. Bow leans along with her as they sync up their movements.

“Who’s losing at Bug Quest?” Snatcher shoves her hat over her face and the distraction causes her character to jump straight into a spiky wall and plummet to its doom. “Not me.”

“Peck-neck!” She punches at him over her shoulder while Bow’s character jumps around waiting for her respawn.

Moonjumper chuckles. “Yes, you seem well enough to cause problems.”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

They just smile at him. “And thanks to your honest reputation, I never doubted you.”

Snatcher’s expression deadens. “Go back to Subcon already.”

Moonjumper reaches out and nabs a beanbag from a corner of the room with their threads and props themself up against it, pillowing their head with their arms. “Subcon is fine. It’s in capable hands.”

“You mean the minions.”

“...Subcon is fine.”

“You’ve met the minions.”

“It’s as fine as your hand.”

Snatcher wishes so desperately he still has magic so he could properly smack them around. As it stands, he resorts to yanking the beanbag out from underneath them. Their levitation means they don’t hit the ground in any satisfying way, but at least there’s the principle of the gesture.

Moonjumper narrows their eyes and gives him a feline smile and drops the beanbag directly onto Snatcher. It’s heavier than an average pillow, so the impact flattens him.

“Ugh, can you two stop thrashing around back there? We’re at a hard part,” Hat Kid says.

“Sure thing, kiddo,” Snatcher wheezes as he pushes himself back upright. “Let me just-” He rests a hand on her shoulder and uses it to leverage himself to a standing position, of course jostling her and subsequently Bow Kid enough that the two kids groan as their characters are killed once again.

“Aw, we were so close to the boss fight,” Bow says.

“Oh there's gonna be a fight,” Hat Kid mutters, rolling her sleeves up and kicking the controllers off to the side.

Snatcher pauses, a pillow in his hand midswing, and catches the glint in Hat Kid’s eye. “Wait, kid! They started it!”

Moonjumper gasps. “What! Are you serious?”

Moonjumper can still escape, unlike Snatcher who no longer has any defense against the ridiculously strong child, so he might as well deflect as much ire as he can. Not that it's working, he realizes grimly as Hat Kid marches toward them.

Five minutes later, he and Moonjumper are trussed up back to back in a blanket, deposited on Snatcher’s bed at the foot of the window, far away from the reach of the kids who are now successfully confronting the boss without disturbances.

“You know,” Snatcher says, “you can easily get us out of this.”

“It seems a bit rude to disrespect the verdict of our hosts like that,” Moonjumper says pleasantly. He can’t see their face, but from the sound of their voice, he can tell they’re smirking. “Besides, this blanket is quite comfortable.”

Snatcher rolls his eyes. They’re staying here because they know it's the option that will most aggravate him. "If you keep up the goody-goody act, I'm going to hurl, and then you'll really want to get out."

“I am willing to call your bluff on that one.”

Well, yeah, they’re right. Through the harrowing first month of life as a human, Snatcher has finally forged a tenuous accord with this body, and even if he were truly nauseated, it’s not something he would willingly leverage. They’re right, and it’s annoying. He settles for elbowing them inside the blanket.

“Oh come on, Snatcher, you could just sit here and relax.”

“When I’m conjoined to your behind? How am I supposed to relax?”

“We could just have a normal conversation like normal people.”

“Again, there is nothing about our situation that’s normal, and neither are we, for that matter.”

Moonjumper sighs. Snatcher feels their shoulders heave with it. “We could also sit in silence then.”

Snatcher glares at the floor. Sitting back to back with someone is not actually the most comfortable thing, and his legs are getting stiff. What are they supposed to talk about anyway? Feelings? Shared interests?  _ The past? _ If they’re so determined to sit here, indulging the kids’ Time Out sentence, then silence it is. Snatcher has nothing to talk about. (Does he?)

It was like this at the beginning too. Moonjumper had approached for the first time, greeting him with mannerisms so familiar, Snatcher had an out-of-body experience. Literally. To see someone else wearing everything of the Prince but his face--because he never even had the chance to change out of his traveling clothes before...well, you know--was like his own reflection reached out of a mirror to try and shake his hand. Followed him around, talked at him, tried to be his friend… And then later started criticizing him, and that had been the last straw. But always, they were the one reaching out. Why?

“I believe you, about your hand being better. But I hope you know you  _ can _ talk to me if something is wrong.”

It’s Snatcher’s turn to sigh. Always reaching out. “Terrific. I’ll remember to forget that if anything ever goes wrong.”

“You jest, but I do know what it’s like to be thrust into a corporeal existence without warning.” They shift behind him. “Lots of things go wrong,” they say in a low voice.

There they go again.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have made off with my corpse, ever think of that?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have broken the Time Piece,” they fire back.

“I didn’t think  _ this _ would happen!”

They’re silent for a beat, then, flatly: “Exactly.”

Snatcher loses his grip on whatever retort was simmering. Their meaning drifts down and alights on his comprehension. He grinds his teeth. Ever since their first big argument, he’s tried to be less hostile toward them. Their circumstances were just as unfortunate as his. They just have a knack for getting him worked up and prickly. He always feels like he’s being watched. Always feels like he’s disappointing.

The second silence that falls over them sticks for the rest of the evening, lingering even after Hat Kid deigns to release them from their imprisonment.

“Sheesh, you’re grouchier than usual,” Hat Kid comments after Moonjumper exchanges their farewell pleasantries with the kids and departs, though not before casting one last glance at Snatcher over their shoulder. “I thought my Get Along Blanket would work.”

Snatcher broods on his comforter, having cocooned himself in the blanket that is now much more spacious with only one person inside it. “I don’t know what gave you the bright idea that pasting my living body to my dead body for an hour would make rainbows and kittens start sprouting out of thin air.” He thumps his upper thigh. There’s a recurring cramp in his muscles that will probably still be there in the morning.

“That’s a weird image,” Hat Kid says. “You’re so weird.”

“I thought you two weren’t fighting anymore,” Bow says. “After the Clearing Thing.”

“Ugh, we’re not fighting, but we’re not friends either, kid. We’re too different for that.”

Bow Kid tilts her head. “Really? I thought you two have a lot in common. Because of the...um-”

“You don’t know a  _ thing _ about us-” he snarls, but Hat Kid cuts him off.

“ _ Hey! _ ” She’s stepped slightly in front of Bow who looks surprised at his outburst. “Don’t yell at her.” Hat glares at him, and he snaps his mouth shut, averting his gaze.

“Yeah,” Snatcher mumbles, still looking away. “Sorry,” he says, even quieter.

“It’s okay,” Bow says. She’s mumbling too, probably fidgeting with her fingers the way she does when she’s shy. “I didn’t mean to talk about the, um, the-”

“Forget it, kid,” he groans, turtling deeper into the blanket. He’s pretty sure it’s not all that late yet, but just now he’s overcome with exhaustion.

Despite that, Snatcher doesn’t sleep for a while. The kids have long since shut off the lights and settled into bed. Damn Moonjumper, riling him up. And of course, he vents that on the nearest target, and pisses off Hat Kid in the same efficient maneuver.

They’re always harping on that point of commonality, their shared trauma, as if somehow that means they  _ get _ him, when everything that they have of Snatcher’s past self is what they pirated from  _ his  _ memories. Just put his life on like a used sweater and think they know what it means to  _ be  _ him. Yes, he understands them better now, but it doesn’t just erase the fact that they bootlegged his identity and somehow made it out the other side intact.

Snatcher hugs his knees to his chest and tucks his face against his legs. The blanket shelters him in a comforting void.  _ Somehow made it out as the better version of him. _

* * *

Week 6.

To an immortal of three hundred years, the passage of time is an abstraction, marked at most by the advent of funny new inventions that appear each time Snatcher ventures out of the forest. Measured in the changes he’s experienced, a century has gone by in the six weeks of being human again. He stands at the outskirts of his hollow, where the kids’ ship dropped them down. Objectively, everything looks the same. He’s known this ground, these thorns, this tree far longer than he had ever been alive, yet he stares at them, every ordinary detail snagging his mind as an anomaly to analyze. Hat and Bow watch his reaction with bated breath.

“Why would I want to go on a boat trip to the coldest place on Earth?” he had protested the previous week when they bounced up and down in front of him with cruise tickets in hand.

“Please! It’ll be fun! You wanted to go the last time!” Hat Kid said.

“That was when I was a powerful spirit who could do whatever I wanted,” he retorted.

“Don’t worry, we’ll make sure you have lots of warm clothes!” Bow Kid said.

He never mentioned his traumatic response to cold outright, but the kids seemed to read between the lines anyway. It was the Arctic, though. Would wearing mittens really be enough to satisfy his hair-trigger anxieties?

“And what about Subcon? If Moony’s going, who’s gonna keep the intruders out? The Subconites?” He teased the little gremlins, but the idea of leaving them alone to fend for themselves for a week snagged his mind like little, needling claws.

“I’ll handle it,” Moonjumper had said. “Look, how about this: I’ll get everything set up and when it’s ready, you can come down and decide if you’re satisfied that it’s good enough to leave alone for a little while.”

Snatcher threw his hands in the air. “Or you all could just go! Why am I being involved in this?”

Hat Kid cast her eyes down, scuffing her boots on the floor. “You don’t  _ have _ to go if you don’t want to.”

He’d groaned internally then. The freaking Bambi eyes. Why they wanted him to be there was a damn mystery but. “Fiine,” he grumbled, waving a hand at Moonjumper. “Do whatever it is you’re planning to do.”

“Yeahh!” Hat Kid shouted, flinging her arms around him.

He staggered at the impact. “Okay! Enough, kid!”

“Trust me, it will be worth it,” Moonjumper had said and disappeared with a salute.

Now, back in Subcon, Snatcher pulls his scarf up higher around his face and shoves his hand back into the pockets of his parka. Even with the surrounding flames dwindling to mere embers, though, he doesn’t feel cold. Either he’s less sensitive these days or something has changed in the interim. Snatcher glances at Moonjumper, and as if they were waiting for him, they turn their head and give him a wry smile.

“I made a few changes,” they say. “Don’t worry, nothing dramatic. But I can’t keep the trees burning so I have to use some different tactics.”

They lead him toward the river boundary that separates the manor grounds from the rest of the forest. Snatcher stops in his tracks, eyes widening. On the entire visible perimeter, a lattice of red threads spiderweb across the trees, forming a woven barrier that separates the territories. Snatcher stutter-steps forward, and as he gets closer, he can see the way snowflakes from the other side of the river catch onto the threads like errant flies, clinging for a brief second before melting. He reaches a tentative hand forward and touches the aura of faint warmth radiating from the barrier as it casts its soft glow onto the scattered detritus of the forest floor. He can’t help his mouth hanging open a bit as he watches the magical net billow with the wind creeping across from manor.

“It’s not a perfect solution,” Moonjumper says from behind. “And somewhat inefficient at the moment, but…” They trail off. “It’ll hold the fort for now.”

Snatcher turns around and looks them fully in the eye, and contrary to their typical interactions, they’re the one to look away first, rubbing the back of their neck. He doesn’t say anything. Can’t.

“Well, that’s not the only thing though,” they say. In a flash, they warp to the outskirts of the forest. The thread work is more subtle here, and Snatcher almost misses it, the way they are entwined into the very earth. The red lines snake through the dirt, twisting into dizzying paths and burrowing beneath the leaf litter like tangling roots.

“It’s simple misdirection. Anyone trying to get in will wander about for a bit in a seemingly straight line, and then pop right back out near where they entered,” Moonjumper goes on to explain. They smirk. “I’m not about to harvest their souls for you, but it’ll be enough to frustrate the intruders when there’s no one around to give them a scare.”

Snatcher finally finds his voice. “What, you’re telling me you scare people?”

Moonjumper taps their cheek with a wink. “You have your methods, I have mine.”

Hat Kid slides up to his side. “So...what do you think?”

Bow Kid pokes her head forward too. “And are you warm enough? I brought a hat if you want it.” She holds up a knitted cap with cat ears.

He huffs a laugh before he can help himself. Actually, his eyes are burning a little, and there’s a lump in his throat that he can’t explain. “Yeah, yeah, kiddos, it’s fine. I’ll go on the dumb cruise,” he says, a little thickly.

“Yay!” The kids jump circles around him. “Arctic Cruise 2!”

Over their shoulder, Snatcher catches Moonjumper’s eye again. He doesn’t quite smile, just quirks a corner of his lip and tips his head, but they do smile back, more subdued than their usual fare.

Snatcher is no stranger to magic, and while Moonjumper’s style is different from his own, the scale of what they’ve done is taxing, even if their pleasant expression betrays no fatigue. In all of his intense reorienting to the scenery of his old forest, Snatcher hadn’t missed the way the snow in the village had been scraped off the trees and shoveled or how the furniture in his home had been dusted and straightened. The Subconites amble about, relaxed and comfortably mischievous.

Three hundred years of watching over one forest means he knows every corner of it. He could feel it breathe and burn like a part of himself. Even disconnected as he is now from the magic of it, his invisible roots still linger. His heart lives on in that earth. Moonjumper has tended it, spent a great deal of their strength to ensure its protection, guarding against exactly the things he worries about most without him having to explain a thing.

“Trust me,” they had said. It leaves him feeling both heavy and light at the same time. Safe, and yet simultaneously terrifyingly vulnerable. Snatcher wraps his arms around himself, though not because of chill. Yeah, he’s going to just keep walking on past that one.

He feigns sleepiness after the kids teleport the three of them back to the ship, leaving Moonjumper and the forest behind.

“Really? It’s not even late,” Hat Kid says. She peers at him, and Snatcher balks from her scrutiny.

“Kid, don’t stare like that, it’s weird.” He waves her away.

“Hm,” she says, but she lets him be, and he lets out a breath. He needs time to...process.

He lies on his bed, staring up at the ceiling and tries to piece his feelings together because he’s getting signals but has no idea what to make of them. Typical of the human experience so far really.

After a while of going about their business, the kids clamber up the slide to his spot and plop a bunch of pillows and blankets near him. Snatcher raises an eyebrow as they set out makeshift bedding near his own, reminiscent of the first night he broke down.

Hat Kid notices him watching. “I thought you said you were sleepy.”

He blinks. He completely forgot he used that as an excuse to be aloof. “I was. You woke me up.”

Despite the obvious lie, she just snorts and tucks herself into her nest beside him, snuggles up with Bow and starts up a game on their tablet.

Snatcher keeps staring. “What are you two doing?”

“Hanging out, what’s it look like?” Hat Kid says, though she stays focused on the game.

“Here?”

“Yup.” Silence, except for the cartoonish sound effects from the tablet. “You can go back to sleep if you want.”

Snatcher eyes them for a bit longer, struggling to glean their intentions. They seem to sense that he’s not in the mood for much engagement. It’s...nice though, having them there. He started the day off skeptical and nervous for what he was going to return to when visiting his forest. He has never been away from it for so long. It had been a surprise, seeing it so well cared for. All of this had been a surprise.

Something tickles his face, and Snatcher reaches up to swipe at it, only to find wetness on his cheeks. He freezes. Listens. The sounds of Hat Kid’s game continue uninterrupted. He doesn’t want to look, doesn’t want to know if they can see him. The lump in his throat from earlier that day returns, and Snatcher wrestles with it until he’s brittle. He settles for draping his arm over his eyes, and the dampness in them steadily pools and soaks into his sleeve. It’s all he can do to keep his breathing steady, especially when he feels Hat Kid shift over and lean into his shoulder, not saying a word. Whatever this feeling is, he doesn’t want to look at it, doesn’t want to touch it. He just lies there, every muscle tense, long past when the rhythm of Hat Kid’s breathing slows, until eventually exhaustion grants him rest.

* * *

Week 8.

Luka sits on the plush couch, too small to support a pair of adults as it was built for a child. Vanessa is curled against him, laying her head in his lap and scrunching her legs up in the compact seat. He runs a hand through her hair, and she lies there content, her eyes closed and lips curved in a peaceful smile. Her golden locks glisten in the dim lamp light that shines from the mobile over the crib nearby, its soft music box melody drifting through the room.

There is a stirring in the crib that catches his attention, and he lays a hand on Vanessa’s shoulder to rouse her. She makes a small sleepy noise that fills him with warmth as she slowly pushes herself upright, leaning on him for support. Together they walk over to the crib, him with his arm resting just against the small of her back, and look down at their child.

Small and brown haired, she’s going to look like him, he can already tell. It makes his chest clench up with how full his heart feels to see her, his sweet baby. He looks over at his queen, his love, and she smiles at him, even with her tiredness, still she glows. This is everything Luka could have ever hoped for. Everything is perfect.

(No. Alas. I am sorry.)

Snatcher snaps awake in the darkness with a gasp. How quickly the lightness of dreams becomes the crushing weight of reality. How often that damn nursery has been the setting. Sometimes Vanessa tears the room apart while he pleads with her. Sometimes she kills him there. This was different. He would rather have the nightmares. They hurt less, at least for the familiarity.

He sits up, already aware he’s been crying--he’s starting to get used to the sensation. This body and its emotions… The planet light casts sharp shadows through the window, bladed edges in his vision. Snatcher buries his face in his hands to block it out and tries to remember his fictional child. She’s a blank slate, just a blur of a face already fading.

Another vision materializes in his mind--a memory this time--of them imagining their future together. How bright it had seemed. How like this dream.

Snatcher’s chest is tight again, but not with joy this time. And again, another stirring alerts him. Blearily, he turns in the dark and catches sight of the two very real children sleeping at his side. Hat Kid is sprawled out and drooling, half out of the blanket she’s sharing with Bow who is tucked against her with an arm draped over. Ever since their cruise vacation, this sleeping arrangement has been happening more often. Every time they roll up with their arms stuffed with blankets, he prepares his protests of annoyance, but it’s just another one of the ways his body betrays him that those complaints die on the tip of his tongue, and he silently acquiesces to their presence. (He sleeps better knowing they’re close. Usually.)

“I want a family with you,” Prince Luka had once said.

Snatcher stares at the kids. Family... He has to press his hands to his face again just then, curling his fingers half into fists. It isn’t the first night he has had to silently ride out his shattering emotions, but this one is bad. He sits there, clutching his head until something inside snaps. He’s  _ tired, _ he realizes--tired of fighting with himself, tired of holding it back. He slides himself out of the blanket blindly because he’s still covering his face and creeps out of the bedroom to the bridge because above all things, he  _ cannot _ wake them up, not when he’s this fragile.

Snatcher slumps on a chair in front of the massive viewport. You  _ don’t _ have a family, he tells himself. It was just a dream. The thought leaves him so bereft, he may as well be back in the cellar again. He reaches over to the terminal, his hand hovering for a split second, then hits a button and calls the last person on Earth who knows him.

Moonjumper answers within the first ring, their face materializing on a holo-screen that opens in the viewport. “You’re up la-oh! Snatcher! Sorry, I thought you were the-oh...Oh. Are-are you alright?”

His head is bowed, he can’t even see them at the moment. He just shakes his head.

Their voice goes low and soft. “I’ll be right there.”

Snatcher doesn’t look up when he hears the pop of displaced air as Moonjumper teleports into the bridge. A hand alights on his shoulder, and the instant it does, the sob he was holding back wrenches itself out of his throat. From there he cannot stop.

Even in the first weeks of getting his human body back, he never cried this hard. Not through the panic attacks and flashbacks and the sleep deprivation. This is something else, something deeper. The entire time, Moonjumper does not move a muscle, their silent presence rooted like a mountain.

When he finally finds the strength to lift his head, only then do they move. Without a word, they float off and a few eternal minutes later, when he starts to wonder if they actually have gone back to the forest already and left him, they return with a wet cloth and press it into his hands. Right, crying is gross. Snatcher can’t even breathe through his nose anymore, his ragged breaths hissing out through his teeth. He leans back in the chair, squinting through swollen eyes up at the ceiling.

He must fall asleep this way because he wakes up there with a stiff neck, though he can’t see at first until he realizes the towel had been placed over his eyes at some point, and he has a blanket over him in the chair. Snatcher pulls the towel off and blinks at the still-dark room. Moonjumper is still there, floating a little ways in front with their hands clasped behind their back as they look out the window. He tries to ask them how long it’s been, but nothing about him is functional and only a wheezing croak comes out. It’s still enough to catch their attention, though.

The second sleep must have helped, or at least he’s too tired for emotions finally, because he no longer feels like broken glass. He tips his head at Moonjumper when they turn to him. They don’t smile--not the time and place for it--just slow blink and return the gesture. They stay up together the rest of the night, the silence only interspersed with Snatcher’s occasional rattling cough.

Maybe they’re right. Maybe they do know him. Because they never offer comfort, they don’t assure him it’s okay, they don’t ask him what’s wrong. They’re just...there. Like the days before the cruise, they knew what was needed, what he needed. He never told them.

“Trust me,” they had said.

He does, he realizes. He does.

**Author's Note:**

> Took some adaptation liberty with the nursery comic. I find the good dreams are the ones that hurt more...


End file.
